Third Window Films has been a major factor in re-introducing the world to the works of Shinya Tsukamoto with releases of films like Tetsuo, Gemini, Kotoko, Bullet Ballet, A Snake of June, and Tokyo Fist. Today sees them release Shadow of Fire and Vital on Blu-ray and digitally!
Here is the information:
ほかげ 「Hokage」
Release Date: November 25th, 2023
Duration: 95 mins.
Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto (Screenplay),
Starring: Shuri, Oga Tsukao, Hiroki Kono, Go Riju, Tatsushi Omori, Mirai Moriyama,
Shinya Tsukamoto (Tokyo Fist, Vital) gives audiences a tale of broken people in the black markets of post-war Japan. It stars Shuri (Love at Least), Mirai Moriyama (The Drudgery Train), and Hiroki Kono, director of the Pia Film Festival Grand Prix award-winning film J005311.
This is apparently part of Tsukamoto’s war trilogy, which includes Fires On the Plain and Killing and it won the NETPAC award (best Asian feature film) at the 2023 edition of the Venice Film Festival.
Synopsis: As Japan rebuilds itself from the ruins of war, we are in the presence of people scarred by the experience, all encountered by a boy in a harrowing coming-of-age drama. One person, a woman living alone in a half-burnt ramen restaurant, looks after the boy who lost his family in an air raid. The two survive through her selling her body and the occasional stealing of food from the black market. When a former soldier comes seeking her services, he gets close to both the woman and the little boy but violence soon erupts between the adults who cannot escape their traumas and the boy finds himself on the road with a man who is haunted by nightmares of his past. The man’s reason for travelling with the boy are soon revealed to be connected to taking revenge on the person who left him with those nightmares.
This will be available to stream and the Blu-ray is a REGION B release. The extras on the package look like this:
- Tom Mes feature audio commentary
- “The Reality Of Violence” Video Essay by Robert Edwards
- Shinya Tsukamoto and author Kota Ishii talk event
- Director and cast cinema stage greetings
- Trailer
- Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)
ヴィタール 「Buita-ru」
Release Date: December 11th, 2004
Running Time: 85 mins.
Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Writer: Shinya Tsukamoto(Screenplay)
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, KIKI, Nami Tsukamoto, Kazuyoshi Kushida, Lily, Jun Kunimura, Hana Kino, Ittoku Kishibe
This release is in celebration of the film’s 20th anniversary.
I saw this one at a cinema during its original UK theatrical run and bought the DVD, both handled by Tartan at the time and fell in love with it. Here’s the opening from my review from over a decade ago:
Tsukamoto once again brings us a tale of metamorphosis but, as in A Snake of June, it is more psychic and mental than physical, life affirming instead of destructive and much calmer than usual. The fascination with cyberpunk and body-horror, once an overwhelming aspect of his early films, is toned down and replaced with a humanistic tale of life, death and memory.
Synopsis: Hiroshi Takagi (Asano) wakes up after a car accident in which a truck crashed into his car. He can’t remember anything, not even the faces of his parents who take him home, but when he reads two of his old books, the first named Doctors and Medicine, the second named Dissection, an interest in medicine emerges and he enters medical college. He soon catches the attention of a beautiful student named Ikumi Yoshimoto (KIKI) who watches him as he sits in lectures but he is not interested in her which piques her interest. As their course enters the rainy season they begin a four month class focussing on dissection and Takagi and Yoshimoto find themselves dissecting the same corpse which is around the same time that Takagi’s has dreams of a woman named Ryoko (Nami Tsukamoto) who exists in a beautiful dream space and his memories begin to return.
This will be available to stream and the Blu-ray is a REGION B release. The extras on the package look like this:
- Making of Vital
- Archival Interview with Shinya Tsukamoto
- Video Essay – An Assault On The Senses
- Tom Mes Audio Commentary
- Music Clips
- World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival
- Special Effects Featurette
- Trailer
- Slipcase with artwork from Ian MacEwan (limited to 2000 copies)
Also worth noting is the release of the standard edition of Typhoon Club (review) which comes with the following features:
- New 4K digital remaster from the original negatives
- Feature audio commentary by Tom Mes
- Video Essay by Josh Slater-Williams
- Assistant Director Koji Enokido Talk Event
- Introduction by Ryusuke Hamaguchi at the Berlin Film Festival
- Trailer